DM Monitoring
UNITED NATIONS: Political talks on Libya’s future have reached agreement on holding elections within 18 months, the United Nations acting Libya envoy said, hailing a “breakthrough” in a peacemaking process that still faces great obstacles. “There’s real momentum and that’s what we need to focus on and encourage,” envoy Stephanie Williams said in Tunis, where 75 Libyan participants chosen by the UN have been meeting since Monday.
The meeting has reached preliminary agreement on a roadmap to “free, fair, inclusive and credible parliamentary and presidential elections” that also includes steps to unite institutions, she said. Libya has been in chaos since 2011 and divided since 2014 between rival factions in east and west, with major institutions also split or controlled by armed groups.
The internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) holds power in the capital Tripoli, while strongman Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) holds sway in the east.
The Tunis talks follow a ceasefire that the GNA and LNA agreed last month in Geneva.
On Thursday, a joint military commission they established in the flashpoint city of Sirte to hammer out the details of the truce will consider adopting proposals for both sides to withdraw from frontlines.
Thursday’s talks in Tunis were centered on a new unified transitional government to oversee the run-up to elections, with participants discussing its “prerogatives and competencies,” Williams said. The new government would have to quickly address deteriorating public services and corruption, two issues that prompted protests on both sides of the frontlines this summer, she added.
The roadmap also outlines steps to begin a process of national reconciliation, transitional justice and address the plight of displaced people, Williams said.
She said Tuesday’s assassination of dissident lawyer Hanan al-Barassi in Benghazi “reminds us of the need for Libyans to really end this long period of crisis and division and fragmentation and impunity”. The UN selected the 75 invitees to the political talks to represent existing institutions and the diversity of Libyan society, a move that has sparked criticism of the process and its credibility.
The talks took place as a joint military commission of senior pro-GNA and pro-Haftar officers continued meetings in Sirte, the hometown of longtime ruler Muammar Qaddafi whose 2011 toppling sparked Libya’s crumble into chaos.
Sirte is on the line dividing zones controlled by the two forces, after Haftar’s year-long bid to seize the western city of Tripoli fell through after a June GNA counter-attack backed by Turkey.
